Floods in Greece: Graz couple still missing

2023-09-08 07:51:00

A total of almost 2,000 people have been rescued so far, fire department spokesman Vasilios Vathrakogiannis told the news channel ERTnews on Friday. The number of deaths remained at six as of Friday morning. A couple from Graz has been missing since the floods in Greece, but the total number is still unclear.

The Austrian citizens were missing in Pelion, which was badly affected by the storms. The Austrian embassy in Athens and the honorary consulate in Volos are in constant contact with the local authorities in order to provide the best possible support in the search for the missing people.

Because many villages are still surrounded by water and cut off from the surrounding area, the situation is unmanageable. The Greek weather service Meteo published a map showing the extent of the flooding. The situation is particularly dramatic in the municipality of Karditsa, which resembles a large lake. A total of around 72,000 hectares were flooded, the meteorologists said.

In the early hours of Friday morning, the alarm was also raised for the city of Larisa – there the Pinios river reached a water level of 9.5 meters, while it is normally around four meters, as the daily newspaper “Kathimerini” wrote. The fire department evacuated several parts of the city that would be affected by a river overflow.

The Greek weather agency EMY declared storm “Daniel” over on Friday. It had settled over the central Greek region of Thessaly since Monday and lasted until Thursday. The rainfall from “Daniel” exceeded anything previously measured by Greek meteorologists. In some places, more than 700 liters of water per square meter fell in less than 24 hours.

The damage is still hard to predict – the port city of Volos is experiencing massive infrastructure damage and is struggling with mountains of mud that the water has washed into the streets. The entire region of Thessaly is considered the “granary” of Greece; most of the fields here are under water, some of which are meters high.